commerce essay

Impact Of E Commerce In Business Commerce Essay

Published: 23, March 2015

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There are three types of people within the business, with in a large company you would separate these types but when you are starting a business you are on your own and you have to act three different roles to achieve a great business if you do not do this you would find that certain functions of the business would never be achieved, below I am going to explain the three different roles in the business to make all the functions work.http://www.bnp-chronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/b2.jpg

The Technician - A lot of people would be this person, this is the skilled person so they think that because I am skilled I can achieve a good business, although having the skill to perform the given task that the business is established for does not mean you have the skills to run the business, there are many different job roles within the business that you may not know, although without you the manager and the entrepreneur cannot achieve what they are supposed to be achieving.

The manager - This would be the person who wants order, control they love structure and high performance they like everything to be out into its place, unlike the technician who strives off of detail and knowledge and how to perform the task, the manager loves the order and they want everything to be done in a manner that gives consistency.

The Entrepreneur - This would be the person inside of you that strives for the business, dreams and focuses on the business becoming bigger and more known to the world. Sometimes you would find that the technicians and the manager seem to take over and forget about the person striving to make the business more of a success, to provide them with more jobs that can resolved or more jobs to organise, going out there to market the business, to make a business a really great business, you have to allow the dreamer to dream, you have to be able to work on your business not just in your business.http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcREGv0_lvVSA_xBK7qkygTzrmlzaK74JRrA63Mof3HbYJM4_k1X-g

As you can see from my examples above the manager and the technician work in the business and the entrepreneur works for the business. Each person has relevant tasks so that the objectives can be solved so the aims can be achieved.

My Business that I am investigating is a company called Jet-Fly LTD and is a retail travel agency that sells holidays and flight tickets on behalf of suppliers, but the main function of this business is to act as an agent, the go between customers and suppliers, with this type of business they do not purchase stock in hand, they rely on customers to purchase holidays or flights to gain a profit.

The profit is there for, the commission that the supplier pays to Jet-fly for selling on their behalf. Although some bigger companies can afford to buy stock in hand as they have the regular buyers of this product and from looking at the sales figure they are pretty much sure these flight could be sold this does give the company a bigger profit option but Jet-Fly it is a smaller travel agency that would not benefit from doing such transactions. Jet-fly also sells travel insurance and coach tickets that also help to achieve further profit.

I used to work full time for Jet-Fly but now only go back when required as I was would fall into the technician role within this company. I believe that Jet-fly does follow the above functional roles within the company; I am going to explain how I come to that conclusion.

Altogether there were five of us that worked for Jet-Fly at the time, it did not have an official fully functional structure of roles within the business but I feel that I can identify the different people with in this business.

Entrepreneur - Yomi was the person who always introduced something new even without knowing how the product was going to affect the business; he would go out to all the travel shows and watch demonstrations and dream of that idea working within Jet-fly. Yomi strives to take the business to higher places he tends to want to branch out and open up more Jet-fly's in other areas, he has been working on websites to improve the sales and establish a bigger name for the company.

Manager - Kingsley is the man who likes order, he does tend to let Yomi do his dreaming even though the idea may not work, as he and Yomi are business partners he has to allow him to introduce new ideas even though he may not approve, he is the one who likes to pay the wages and shout. Without Kinsley in the business everyone would have took advantage of Yomi as he was always out of the office marketing the business. Kingsley knows when the accounts are due and when the bills have to be paid and handles all the paperwork that deal with the banks, he also does the hiring and firing and oversees the daily sales and strives of the way the business conducts itself.

Manager/Technician- James would be the example of both of these he is a much organised and persist person and loves structure slightly more than Kingsley, although his skills as a travel agent are without a doubt outstanding, I feel without James in the business customers would not feel so relaxed when purchasing there flights and accommodations. Although James shows manager skills he knows his part within the structure of the business and also strives to achieve a better profit. I believe that James would not run a successful business as he is not a dreamer, he does not strive to be known, he strives for a fantastic completed job, I feel if he left Jet-fly he could achieve a fantastic career within a bigger travel industry, but lucky for Jet-Fly he has become a shareholder within the business so it is in his best interest to remain.

Technicians - Now we come to me and Kofo, again both technicians but both have different roles within the business that if either or we were to leave it would affect certain areas of the business.

Kofo was the sales girl, she knew what had to be achieved and she went for it, she would be greeting the customers well and basically sweet talking them into buying the holiday, she had the gift of the gab so most would say. Without Kofo and James the business would not be able to provide a profit yet Kofo never was organised or structured although she had to show to Kingsley she was as he was the manager and this is what he strived for, her outlook of the business was completely different she wanted to provide a good customer relationship, to have this kind of person within the business keeps customers coming back.

I was and am still unsure of the role I should fall under as I always wanted to take Jet-fly to another place so I kind of had the dreams within me, but we already had the dreamer of the office so I instead took to the administration part of the business, I kept the back office system in tack this was the system that we used to communicate with airlines and purchase holidays, although Yomi had seen the ideas and implemented them into the business to actually have them working to their full dimensions somebody had to learn how to perform the daily tasks on the system, the system produced all the invoices and letters that had to be sent to the customers this also had to be updated on a regular basis and new functions within the back office system would come out often and would have to be shown to the other staff members, my role was to produce the daily sales to the manager and basically keep the system running smoothly , without me there they do find it difficult to achieve these tasks, which is why I return when required.

My example of different roles within the business shows how the business areas help the business to function, without certain minded people within the business the company cannot carry out the daily, weekly tasks with efficiently and consistency.http://thumbnails.illustrationsource.com/huge.24.124284.JPG

Could you imagine having to fulfil every task and keep customers, supplier and staff happy at all times just because you have a skill, you would feel like you are being pulled in all different types of directions, this would affect the business as you would not be giving 100% to the area you are most happy with doing. One of the biggest skills of all is the ability to know what category you would fall under and focus on that, if you feel that you are a great technician strive to become the best technician start up a practice or work for a well know company where your skills would be essential to the business.

If you do still wish to start up a business evaluate each area first and know what you can succeed in and what areas you will require assistance so you can have a fully functional business as this is a major part to be able to achieve the aims and objectives.

At first you may not be able to afford to employee additional people to help you succeed in this but my advice would be as soon as you can, invest in the help as your business will be a great success.

Task 2- For the same organisation evaluate its business aims and show how these aims relate to their stakeholders.

A stakeholder is a person that takes interest into a business and are there for effected by the way that it may be run; this would be in the areas of success and failure.

Stakeholders can be people within the business or outside of the business; the different types of stakeholders can hold different views and can affect the way the owner wants to conduct the business. Before I evaluate Jet-fly I am going to give some examples of stakeholders and how they can affect any business and then I am going to show how some of these areas of interest effect Jet fly stakeholders.

As a customer who is interested in a product that a certain business provided that makes me a stakeholder. I want to purchase a product but I also want it to be at a competitive price. I want the store to be able to sell that product to me at the cheapest price possible yet the owners of the business who are the shareholders want as much profit as possible so between the customer and the owners we have a conflict of interest when it comes to sales and purchases, yet we would both come together and share a disappointment of interest if the product was to be discontinued as I would not be able to purchase the product and the owner would not be able to gain a profit so together we would both be affected.

As an employee to a company this also makes me a stakeholder and I would have similar interests to the owners/shareholders as I would want to achieve the best possible results to gain profit and ensure the business is a success so I would continue to have an income, if the business was to collapse I would then be affected as I would have to seek further employment and I would share the failure with the customers and the owners/shareholders.

If I supplied goods to a company I would also be a stakeholder as my interest would be my profit so when a business purchases goods from me I would take interest in the business and want it to succeed to be able to receive more orders to be able to gain profit myself, I would share the similar affects as that of a customer, owner/shareholder or employee. This could be in success or failure if the business is doing good then the customer can continue to purchase the product the owners/shareholders gain profit, the employees would be able to collect wages and possible pay rise and I would continue to receive orders and gain profit myself, although if it was to fail we would all be affected in the same way as no business means no profit, no customers, no employees and no orders we would all have to seek alternative options.

Another set of stakeholders would be the government or the health and safety, now these stakeholders can affect a lot of other areas of interest especially the owners/shareholders. These people have legations that have to be met in order for your business to run. Although health and safety is set in place to protect employees or to prevent harm, it does affect the owners/stakeholders as it provides rules that make them concentrate on making the business a safe place which could be costly and time consuming and can distract them from making profit and expanding the business. Although it provides a different affect for the employees this gives the employee a sense of confidence that the work area is safe and secure, which in a way could actually turn the affect into a positive as if you have happy members of staff you get more from them which can help to improve sales and customer services.

This could swing in roundabouts for each different person that takes an interest in the business and could provide different affects each time but in different ways.

Jet-Fly's aim is to provide a service to customers, and achieve a profitable and successful business, in order to do so certain objectives are set and must be followed to achieve such a result. This seems rather easy when looking at it in a sentence; above I explained how people who take interest in a business are stakeholders and gave some examples of how this could affect other stakeholders and the running of the business.

As Jet-fly's service is to provide holidays and flights on behalf of suppliers there is quite a lot here that could affect the aims of Jet-Fly.

First I will begin with customers, customers are what keep Jet-Fly in succeeding the aims, without customers Jet-fly could not purchase goods from suppliers and would never gain a profit, and this would affect the whole business and every stakeholder would have some affect from this at different levels.

If the staff at Jet-fly did not all have different roles in the company everyone would be trying to succeed in all areas and this would lead to a very unstructured business and would affect the way the business contacted the day which could lead to, customers feeling unsafe and staff confused and less profit due to the inconsistences.

Suppliers could affect the way Jet-fly achieve there aims as customers are looking for cheap holidays and flights, if they sell the holiday to Jet-fly with over rated prices the customer will end up shopping elsewhere if found cheaper, this would not only affect the customer but would also affect the supplier as if the customer does not buy from Jet-fly that means Jet-fly will not buy from them so then they have a major part of how Jet-fly achieve there aims.

The government can affect Jet-Fly's aims as not only do they TAX the business they also have taxes on flights that keep going up and up and up, this is actually an issue at the moment within Jet-Fly, it used to cost only £300 pounds to fly to the USA, customers were happy to pay them prices now since the September 11 bombings Airline taxes have doubled which has affected the business, Yomi the entrepreneur needs to find other solutions to help Jet-Fly's profits improve, Kingsley the Manager has noticed that he business profits are reduced, Kofo does not have the customers to be able to sweet talk into buying a flight, so with all of this happening there is less administration duties available. Although with the skills and practice the company have had they have managed to secure regular customers and this helps them achieve the aims but the government have affected the business.

Other countries are also affected by the taxes as if customers are no longer flying because of the taxes, they are also losing out on the customers spending their money in their country, hotels, bars and restaurants will be affected.

Task 3 - Having an e-commerce system in a business has a variety of impacts relating to the consumer and business generally. Analyse the impact, including the risks of introducing am e-commerce system to the organisation.

When a company makes the transformation to trade online they become a clicks and mortar instead of selling in a store bricks and mortar, the immediate effect would be the cost of running the business. The business can sell its store and no longer have to pay the rent involved, which especially in London where most people would be in the U.K would be extremely high. The business could relocate to a cheaper area and rent a place or if it's a small enough business could be managed in the owners own home, which would reduce the fixed costs. If the company is bigger than logically the cost of setting up to trading online would of course be more expensive it scales on cost depending on size of company, larger businesses have to pay for more staff and buildings etc. Also if the owner wanted to keep their bricks and mortar outlet but wanted to expand as cheaply and efficiently as possible, it would be more beneficial to expand using the internet since they would only need to set up one site compared to many brick and mortar stores throughout the country which would cost a lot of money.

The business would then have to look at the staff it has and would need to make the sales staff or any other unnecessary staff redundant because they are no longer needed, this would again reduce the costs of running the business. Depending on the skills of the owner of the business a web developers services might be needed to set up a functioning website to trade its customers, if the owner know how to make websites then the cost is reduced even more. This would be ideal if the company was a small company or sole trader, however the bigger the company gets they would need to hire employees to make their website and keep the servers running, so the bigger the company then there are more expenditures, but it's still ten times cheaper than opening more brick and mortar stores.

So after all these expenses are reduced the cost of running the business electronically is much cheaper than owning a bricks and mortar store. The business might need additional staff with expertise in the I.T field to keep the business running, customer support and logistics, unless the owners are able to do these themselves.

Once the business is established online, the owner would be able to perform market research more efficiently since record of sales would be kept and profiles of the customers who registered on the site, they would be able to send out surveys, and have direct links to their site via advertising on Google to get brand awareness.

When a business is only a bricks and mortar store, the store will have to close at some point during the evening some its employees can go home and it's not profitable to be open during hours when customers are least likely to be at your store. But when the business makes the transition to trading online the store is now open 24/7 and your business is able to trade any day of the year at any time, allowing you to have customers shop at their convenience.

In many cases using the internet as a means to do business a middleman is cut out of the equation in more processes in your supply chain allowing you to keep more of the money you earn, things like deliveries can be done via Royal Mail but if you have to process many orders throughout the day your own logistics department might be more cost effective.

The business can use the website to post its latest brochure on new products for its customers providing them with valuable information about their products and make the customers well informed about what they are buying so the business can have satisfied customers.

Location would no longer be an issue as mentioned earlier if the bricks and mortar store was originally in London where the most people in the U.K are, this company's potential customers has gone from whoever can get to the old bricks and mortar store in London, to effectively the whole world though it would be more than likely just the U.K because cost of delivery to different countries would be too expensive for a small business, so potentially if you can afford the advertisement the whole of the U.K can visit your website and buy your products/services, whereas with a bricks and mortar store just the local people to your store will be your customers.

Other benefits to introducing a e-commerce system is it helps reduce the delivery time, labour cost, and the costs in the following areas:

Document preparation. Since your documents will be kept on computer this is practically free, except for time factor depending on size of the company would either need to spend your time processing documents or pay someone to do it. Google docs, email and technology like SkyDrive (the cloud) make preparation easier and quicker since they allow users to transfer and save work online so users can work quicker and send files to people that need these documents quicker.

Error detection and correction. Since your work is on computer most programs will detect errors like spell check and computers do eliminate a lot of human error.

Mail preparation. It will mostly be done via email.

Telephone calling. Your website will more than likely have links to your email address for customers to contact you or you can use an online chatting system so that your customers can talk directly to you about any enquiries.

Credit card machines. The business will no longer need the machines in a bricks and mortar store to process chip and pin payments or any credit/debit card transaction you no longer need to pay the fees to the company for using their credit card machines. All the money used to buy a product on the businesses website will go to the business. PayPal can also be used over conventional https payments; PayPal is still cheaper than credit card machines.

Overtime. Most work can be done in normal business hours, and there is less work load if it is done on computer.

Task 4 - Discuss the global impact of E-commerce on society

E-commerce is the way that the future is now taking us, it is a way to do financial transactions for businesses and customers; there are many ways this can be achieved.

B2B - business to business

B2C - business to consumer

B2G - business to government

The impact of this has changed our business world and society. E-commerce is the way that most people handle their transactions these days. It is estimated that 288 million people are currently using the system to perform such tasks.

If you're a small business or sole trader and you set up a website for trading, then that website will be working for you while you're not working you can make money while you're asleep for example, this is a bonus to know the site you made is making you money out of office hours.

Using the internet is a lot faster and more streamlined than say using the phone and asking for cash via post basically the process is all automated and is faster for everyone. If a customer gets their order faster the customer is happy, a happy customer is a repeat customer.

Data can be saved on the computer like customer information and invoices so businesses have a record of their customers and transactions in one location. This opportunity is not just ideal for businesses, the environment benefits too as less paper waste is made.

The impact of the e-ecommerce is most definitely moving us to a "global village" this is the concept that people say is the future way of life, and is changing the face of business. This plays an important role for the smaller businesses and the dreamers of the business, which see their company involved in the global village.

Your open 24/7, websites never close for the day they are open for trading all day every day, this helps a business greatly more time open means more time for trading which is more opportunity for more profit. This opportunity is both convenient to the business and the customer as the customer can shop in their own time and the business can operate all hours and for a fraction of the cost of hiring staff etc.

With a website for trading with advertising you can reach the whole world if you can pay for the advertising, and the whole world would be able to use the site to trade with you since your website is just a few clicks away on the internet. This opportunity can happen you would however need to invest in a lot of advertising for all the countries and as many people to know about your website, if the business is just starting then perhaps keeping your customer base to just the country it is in till it is well established is a good idea.

Nowadays more than ever Internet is an excellent way to advertise with tools like Google's AdWords advertising is extremely efficient and you can reach potential customers just by them searching with Google by typing something related to your business in search and your website pops up in a banner to the right of the webpage, all a customer has to do is click it and they are on your site looking at your products. Social Networking like Facebook is also another great way to reach as many people as you can just by people telling people word of your business can spread so easily and this method is cheaper than paying Google. So having a website that can be accesses with the help of Google and Facebook will reach many more people than just having a store in Romford let's say. Although you can advertise with other means to have an advertisement on the internet and your business on the internet is quicker for a potential customer to reach your business to trade.

Information technology has had a major impact on the way we work and has done for quite some time since the electronic mail (email), teleworking and video conferencing it has basically taken over.

Working from home the impact on this has improve the way we run our businesses and help us stay in contact with our employees more, waiting for someone to reach the office is now over thanks to the power of the email, video conferencing etc. people can now have the ability to work from home, the only requirement you would need is a laptop or a PC with internet facilities.

The main advantages to the employer

Office running costs and overheads (rates, electricity, heating etc.) can be reduced, which in turn may reduce the need for office space.

Travel-related problems may be reduced.

It may tempt better staff to come and work for the company.

However, employers need to be able to trust their staff and be prepared to have less direct control over them

Advantages for the employee

You can work from the comfort of your own home.

There is no time wasted travelling and no travel costs.

It enables you to work around the needs of your family and/or children, giving you greater flexibility.

It is more convenient - you can plan the working day to suit you, which could help reduce stress levels.

Disadvantages include

There is less opportunity to meet up with people and share ideas therefore teamwork is more difficult

There may be more temptation to spend time on non-work-related activities.

You could end up feeling isolated and lose some sociability skills.

Home shopping options are many and varied and changing all the time. Most major supermarkets are now on-line, offering home delivery of goods and increasingly, the major high street stores are also competing for on-line trading. The Internet lends itself to shops selling goods which are easily portable, such as CDs and books.

The impacts of home shopping to the customer include:

You can avoid long queues, save time and shop from the comfort of your own home.

You do not have to travel into city centres or pay for car parking costs.

You can shop around for the best prices and shop abroad for cheaper goods.

It can offer the customer a wider range of shopping, 24 hours a day all year round.

People who are house-bound have the ability to shop and have goods delivered.

Security worries about payment by credit card over the Internet.

You do not get to see the goods before purchase which may be defective.

You may worry that the goods will never arrive.

There may be concerns over retailers collecting details about the buying habits of customers.

The impacts to the company:

It opens the market to customers nationally and internationally.

It enables smaller companies to compete with larger companies.

There may be a possible reduction in staffing and/or shopping outlets, thereby reducing costs.

You can offer 24 hour shopping at minimum cost.

Home banking

Most major banks now offer online banking and some are offering only Internet banking. Without the overheads of running and staffing the high street branches they can offer higher rates of interest to customers.

Services include:

You can pay your bills from the comfort of your home or the workplace.

It is possible to transfer money immediately to high interest accounts.

You can check balances and daily transactions on line anytime.

It is possible to set up direct debits and order stationery on line.

All services are from the comfort of your home or workplace, 24 hrs. a day, 365 days a year.

Higher interest rates are available to Internet bankers.

It is easy to shop around on line for the best interest rates and switch funds automatically.

Concerns include:

Small branches are closing or having opening hours reduced.

Reductions in staffing at the major banks.

The move towards banking from your PC, digital TV or mobile phone will only increase these concerns.

Some customers have worries about security because of possible credit card fraud.

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